THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 39 



I have heard of the remains of no fewer than thirteen 

 foxes being found in one drain. A fox takes refuge 

 in a drain : there is no outlet, he cannot work 

 backwards ; then behind him slips in another, this 

 makes the matter more hopeless still, and both 

 are suffocated or starved. Again, many foxes are 

 drowned in sudden floods because they have taken 

 refuge in drains or culverts. 



There is another use besides a refuge that foxes 

 make of short drains : they run through them, 

 thus causing great delays to their enemies. In 

 the season of 1904-5 I saw a very clever ruse of 

 this kind with the West Somerset hounds. The 

 fox had been driven hard for some distance up to 

 a village ; he slipped into a garden or yard, thence 

 over a wall into the road, into and through a short 

 drain, and, strange to say, must have passed quite 

 unperceived up the village street. The pack hunted 

 him over the wall and one or two old hounds 

 marked him at the mouth of the drain-pipe ; but 

 as the drain was short and the other outlet was to 

 be seen in the street down which the whole hunt 

 had come, the huntsman, a well-known and clever 

 one, was some time before he recognised the trick, 

 and then the fox was a long way ahead and ran on 

 out of scent. 



